Category Archives: A Long Way Around Joke

Zeus was angrier than he could ever before remember being… so angry that he was involuntarily shooting lightning bolts from his ears as he stomped across Mount Olympus on his way home from work. The humans this day had so dared to defy him that he could barely compose himself to do what he knew must be done.

Imagine, then, the surprise on Zeus’ face as he arrived at his home to find a note affixed to his door. The note read as follows:

Mr Zeus,

We are sorry to have missed you today, but we must inform you that your lease on our property expired two weeks ago. As per the terms of your original agreement, we have repossessed the Kraken. You do not owe us any further payment at this time. If we may be of service to you in the future, please feel free to contact our offices.

Zeus let out a sigh, knowing this day his anger would have to be quashed as he had known this day was coming but he had inadvertently forgotten to leave word with his receptionist to complete the necessary paperwork in order to maintain his possession of the Kraken. Calmly, he entered his residence and picked up the phone to call his office.

“Thank you for calling Zeus Unlimited, this is Epiphany speaking, how may I direct your call?”

“Hi, Epiphany… this is Zeus…”

“Oh, hey boss, I thought you went home for the day?”

“Yeah, Epiphany, it’s a whole thing I’d rather not go into right now… Anyway, I need you to do something for me ASAP!”

“Sure, boss.”

“Go into my office and locate the lease agreement papers for the Kraken…”

“Okay, I’m in your office now… I see the papers. What do you want me to do with them?”

Sylvester Stallone had a wonderful idea for a science-fiction story that revolved around a fictional meeting of two of history’s greatest composers, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johann Sebastian Bach. Of course it had to involve science-fiction since time-travel would be necessary for these particular historic figures to meet as their lifetimes did not overlap. It would require seeking some financial backing, and he also wanted to involve his good friend Arnold Schwarzenegger to help ensure box office success.

The two actors’ agents began negotiations even as Mr Stallone began to work on the script. Big names like this working together gave the agents confidence that it was worth hammering out a deal even before seeing a treatise of the script. It turns out this was a good thing, because negotiations take a while and the script took months to hammer out as well.

One day, after many months of work, Mr Stallone invited Mr Schwarzenegger over to his home for a read-through of the script. Stallone would read the part of Johann Sebastian Bach while Schwarzenegger read the part of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The read-through took several hours, and many notes were made along the way but the core of the story was one they both felt strongly would work.

There was ultimately only one sticking-point that the two men could not agree upon. Stallone was happy with the two men reading the parts as they had done this day, while Schwarzenegger was not. Finally, in an attempt to get the final word on the subject, Mr Schwarzenegger decided it was time to leave and as he exited the home of Mr Stallone, he said…

This blog has been starving for prose as of late, so I’m introducing another new semi-regular feature…

Bob was a silly putty aficionado. If there was ever anything you wished to know about silly putty, Bob was the guy to ask. He loved everything about it, but he especially enjoyed using it to transfer comic strips and other newsprint ink to other surfaces. Sometimes he would use his silly putty to transfer a temporary tattoo to his arm. If you asked him nicely, he might transfer one to your arm as well.

Bob was never without silly putty in one form or another. His favorite container was the plastic eggs that silly putty often came packaged inside, but Bob found his own ways to store silly putty too. He could keep it fresh inside a ziploc baggie, for example, so that he always had some at the ready to impress his friends or simply to amuse himself. Bob had also learned that he could store silly putty in the freezer to preserve transferred images for later use.

On this particular occasion, Bob’s friend Tim was visiting. Tim had been admiring the temporary tattoos that Bob had been giving to others and asked if he might have a tat of his own. Bob was excitedly going through the options with Tim, when Tim decided to go into the kitchen. Bob followed to find Tim rummaging through the freezer, and he surprisedly asked, “what are you doing?”